


The Shadow in the Snow

by strixus



Category: Doc Savage - All Media Types, Doc Savage - Kenneth Robeson
Genre: Abduction, Adventure, Christmas, Gen, Kidnapping, Krampus - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 12,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doc Savage faces a mysterious kidnapper dressed as Krampus. Who is stealing seemingly unconnected boys from their beds before Christmas, and why?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Monster in the Window

**Author's Note:**

  * For [David Hines (hradzka)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hradzka/gifts).



> “I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.”  
> \-- Taylor Caldwell
> 
> For David, for years of support, fun, and making me blush regularly.

SNOW hissed a sibilant song, cloaking the city of New York in an eerie silence, hushing even the late night sounds which would have penetrated the darkness with its blanket of damp whiteness. It seemed for once the city slept, lulled into peace by the white fall. Or it would have, had not a shadowy figure moved along a rooftop, its crooked, bent form seemingly cloaked in darkness even in the surreal glow of moon and streetlight refracted in the falling snow.

The figure seemed animal, running with a feline gate, yet with limbs and proportions that made it anthropoid. Close inspection would show it to be monstrous in size, a seven and a half foot giant had it stood upright, with its limbs seemingly thick and corded with muscle under heavy, matted fur, its legs bent like those of a dog. It ran with an oddly stiff gate, as if the creature relied more on its momentum to bend them than strength, each limb ending in a thick, heavy paw as broad as a tiger’s. The footprints it left were clawed, long fingered like a bear’s or a man’s.

Even if its size were not seen, nor its strange limbs, the long, curving horns which protruded from the back of the head would have marked it as inhuman. They were nearly two feet long, like those of some African antelope, yet covered in a thick, soft velvet, akin to that of a buck deer in summer. But this did nothing to hide their wickedly sharp points, curving downward towards the running figure’s thickly furred back.

But it was on this back, which was covered in that thick, dark fur, that the real horror was revealed. The creature carried what appeared to be a heavy leather bag, not unlike a rucksack of dark, oiled leather, strapped across its broad back by a single thick strap running from shoulder to hip and around its muscled body. And, bundled down in this sack, his face just barely visible amid furs and blankets, was the face of an unconscious boy child, seven year old Albert Schultz.

 

THE news boys on the corners had yelled the news for nearly a month now, but the kidnappings had started at least two months before that, as best anyone could tell. The first two reports had been ignored by the police, the stories too outlandish to be believed, the parents, all immigrants whose English had been faulty at best, had relayed stories of their sons being stolen in the night by a monster. After all, runaways were common in the poor tenements of the Lower East Side, and the police had too many other problems than to look for two lost boys.

Too, they had dismissed the stories of two young couples living in Yorkville, good, hardworking people whose children, both young boys no older than eight, had vanished in the night less than two weeks apart. Yet, as was so sadly often the case, it had taken the disappearance of the son of one of the most prominent young lawyers in the city, William Schultz, to cause the police to begin to take seriously the disappearances. For, just as the others had said, the Schultz's had been awakened in the night by the sounds of breaking glass and the scream of their son. And, running to the terrified yells of their only child, the horrified parents had seen a monster of inhuman proportions carry their child out of the window, vanishing into the night beyond.

And so, the police had investigated. But what they had found was even more fantastic than the story the couple had told. The window to the child’s bedroom was, as was the rest of the flat, ten stories up a nearly shear building, and well removed from the fire escapes. The window had clearly been broken in from the outside, and, most horrifically of all, claw marks were found in the stone exterior sill, each as long and wide as a man’s finger. Yet, beyond these marks, no other evidence of the kidnapper could be found.

The police were baffled, cried the news boys. And now, a week after the Schultz boy had been taken, no leads were forthcoming, and the police were giving up hope. William Schultz, however, was not the sort of man to leave all avenues unexplored.


	2. The Lawyer’s Question

IT was through the best dressed man in New York City society that William Schultz found his way to the 86th floor of one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan.

Brigadier General Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks was a Harvard man, but that had not stopped him from associating with fellow in law from other schools - though he would have been mortified to befriend a graduate from Yale - and it had been through his contacts among the many law firms of the city that Ham had met William Schultz. Schultz was a Columbia graduate, who, despite a humble background had been a star in his graduating class, and had risen even further since his years in school by means of a quick mind and an even defter hand at legal research. Ham had known Schultz for a number of years before the incident, and had, once or twice, invited the man up to his covert and reserved Park Avenue bachelor quarters for a quick drink after a long case. And it was now that Schultz, looking haggard and careworn, on top of his already small, and rather disheveled and ink-stained self, stood in the doorway to the cozy hideaway of Ham’s devising, his suit disheveled, asking if he could enter to share a drink, and ask Ham the question he had been waiting for since the kidnapping. Chemistry, Ham’s pet ape of questionable species, dozed peacefully on the office rug between the two.

“Of course you can ask a favor of me, Bill! Though I think I know the favor you want to ask, but ask.”

Schultz ran a hand through his hair, looking around and sighing. “I’m at my wits end Ham, I really am. The police are baffled, and half of them think we are as crazy as they thought the Weil’s were when they reported their boy taken! I don’t know what else to do.” His eyes looked pleadingly at the dapper lawyer. “Please, can you ask Doc Savage to help us?”

Ham looked thoughtful for a moment. “You can ask him yourself, he just got back in town yesterday. I haven’t been to see him yet, and I suspect he is still -” He glanced at his watch, noting the late time“- in his office.”

 

THEY took a taxi from Park Avenue, leaving Chemistry to his sleep, to the towering structure where Doc Savage’s office was located, the cold of the winter night enough to make them pull their coats tight around them as they dashed into the lobby. They stepped in from the snow, nodding to the man at the desk, who grinned at Ham, and briskly strode to the private elevator that would take them directly to the office on the 86th floor. It was a space that managed to be both snug yet spacious enough to house an office, the sprawling library of technical texts which had been assembled by Clark Savage, Sr. during his life, and a laboratory renowned across the country, if not the world, for the innovative and complete set of apparatuses contained within. And there, behind a broad, polished top of a massive and beautifully inlaid table sat the man of bronze.

He was a giant of a man, yet so well proportioned that, when seated behind the great table as he was, dressed in the suit of an ordinary man, he could have been mistaken for an ordinary man. Yet under the slightly tweedy exterior there were muscles that a sculptor would have wept to have on a statue of a Greek God; bundled supple cables that lay in the quiet repose of a jungle cat’s sleep.

What most noticed first, however, was that he was a man of bronze. His skin was the bronze of one who spent a life in tropical sunlight, yet was far from a swarthy darkness. Too, his hair was of a slightly darker bronze, straight and laying flat against his head, never seeming to need attention. But most compelling where his eyes, like pools of gold dust suspended in oil, they seemed to glitter, always drawing in the eyes of the observer to his own.

And it was to these eyes that William Schultz pleaded his case, hoping that this bronze sculpture of a man would be able to spare some time to help him locate his son and the other kidnapped boys. For he knew by reputation that Clarke Savage, Jr. was a man of worldly ventures, righting wrongs in whatever far flung part of the world he found them in. He could see no emotion on that bronze face, but he could see the thoughtfulness and power of character written into the features.

Even before the bronze giant of a man spoke, Schultz knew what he would say. He still signed with relief, as if a great weight had been removed, when Doc Savage spoke.

“Of course I’ll help.” There was a pause, heavy in the air for a moment. “But not just you. I’ll look for all of the kidnapped children.” The bronze eyes flicked towards the window then back to meet Schultz’s own. “Whatever that thing is, it can’t be left to leave the city in fear.”

“Then you do believe what I saw!” The words nearly tumbled out of the little lawyer.

Doc’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Of course I do, Mr. Schultz. And I’m going to have a word with the police commissioner about his men and their treatment of the first kidnappings.”

He stood from behind the great table, its surface catching a reflection of his bronze face as he turned away. “Ham, I need you to call him. I want everything they have, though I doubt it will be much. I also want everything the papers have printed on the case.” Doc had been gone from the city until the day before, having just returned from a remote part of South East Asia. Had he been in the city, he thought, he should have been working on this problem as soon as he had read the papers.

“Tonight?” Asked Ham.

“Tonight. Mr. Schultz, I need a full, detailed description of your son on the night he was taken.” He was pointed to a pad of paper and began to write, trying to pull every detail from his mind.

In his concentration, he did not overhear Ham’s conversation with the rudely awakened commissioner, nor the equally brisk tone the waspish lawyer took with the man as he requested the files. Nor did he stop to wonder where the man of bronze had disappeared.

They were both interrupted, a good twenty minutes later, by the sound of the car of Doc Savage’s private elevator arriving.


	3. Catching A Cold Scent

“YOU simian faced scoundrel!”

The shout from Ham startled Schultz out of his writing, and he looked up to see what, had it not been for the clothing, he would have mistaken for a monstrous ape covered scars entering through the office door, carrying a large box filled with papers. It was a man, he realized, or at least it had to be, and his name was surely Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair. Monk, Schultz knew, despite the appearance of looking like nothing more than the sculpture of a gorilla made of rust, gristle and steel, was one of the leading industrial chemists of the world, and a swift mind for many fields beyond that.

Ham, who had spoken the insult, regarded Monk with a mixture of disdain and genuine welcome. “What are you doing here? And put down that box before you crush it!”

“I just got back in the country the day before yesterday. I was at a conference on polymer chains, having to give a paper.” At this, Ham snorted. Monk glared.

“I brought up this here box of files for Doc,” said the chemist, in a voice that could have been mistaken for that of a child or one who spent too much time around leaky helium cylinders, “There was a cop downstairs with them who looked like he was about to have a heart attack from carrying them. Said Doc wanted them right away. And since I was here because Doc called me over the radio, I thought, well, I’d save the poor man the trip.”

Before Ham could answer, Doc’s voice came from the doorway to the library, “Ah, Monk, you’re here. And the files are too? Set them down and start spreading them out on the table.”

Ham and Monk did as instructed. Doc came over to Schultz, and picked up the sheet the man had been writing on, scanning it with golden eyes.

“Ham, find the descriptions of the other children. Monk, I doubt there are many, but find whatever photographs the police took of the scenes.” The obeyed, efficiently churning through the mess that was the collection of files.

Doc scanned the descriptions, his face impassive, trained long ago into hiding his emotions. But a strange, quiet trilling sound escaped his lips, a small habit, but one that triggered in Monk and Ham instant alertness.

“What is it, Doc?” Monk piped questioningly.

“There’s a connection here,” Doc rumbled, almost to himself, “I can see it, but I need more information to be sure.”

Ham and Monk looked at one another, then back at Doc. He did not explain further, but they were long ago accustomed to that.

“Tomorrow morning, you two go out and interview every victim’s family, except for the Weils. I’ll talk to them personally. I need everything you can get out of the parents, and not just about the boys. I need information about them, their family, medical history, everything.” The two nodded.

Doc looked at the little lawyer, as if noticing him again for the first time. “Mr. Schultz, tell me about your family.”

 

WILLIAM Schultz, it turned out, had a rather uninteresting family history. He had, along with his father and mother, come to New York at the age of two, from a small village in Baden, like so many others because of the constant chaos in the area. His father had been a clerk, and had continued his profession in America, though his income was such that his wife had become a washerwoman to help support them. Here, in the row-houses of New York, he had grown up and met his wife, Elsie, whose family had come from a nearby village with her as a toddler under similar circumstances. She had been a secretary at a firm where Schultz had clerked during law school, and, after returning from a brief stint overseas during the war, doing nothing more than polishing a chair with his posterior, had married her. Albert was their first and only child, healthy, if not unusually so, with dark hair, light eyes, and a love of the Lone Ranger and all the normal things a child his age enjoyed. He went to school, played with a few friends, but mostly kept to himself, a child very much like his father had been.

Doc had frowned, an unusual expression for his sculpted, bronze features to take, and shook his head as Schultz ended his account.

“Mr Schultz, can you and your wife come to my office tomorrow? Would you be willing to submit to a few brief medical tests?”

“But I thought you said you believed me!” The little lawyer felt his hope falling away.

“I do. This is not related to your mental health, though I suspect you could very much use some rest.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I haven’t slept more than a few hours since Albert was taken. Nor has Elsie. We can be down here tomorrow, whenever you require. Anything, if it will help return our son.”

Doc nodded. “And the other boys.”

“And the others!” Schultz quickly agreed.


	4. The Others

MONK turned to Ham, his expression one of sudden realization, and chirped in his incongruous childlike voice, “Hey! I wonder if Doc realizes that tomorrow is Christmas Eve?”

They were walking along the sidewalk of a street in Yorktown, lined with brownstone houses and banks of greying snow from the night before. The air was crisp and cold, the clouds above threatening another snowfall with little notice. Here, they hoped to find one of the two families in the neighborhood whose son had been kidnapped by the reported monster.

The slim waisted, well dressed Ham regarded the ape like Monk walking next to him on the sidewalk of the Yorktown street. “You know, I doubt very much he does,” he paused, “He never has been one to pay much attention to such things.”

“These families must be awfully torn up. Their kids missing at Christmas, and all.” Monk looked thoughtful, an expression Ham still thought looked for all the world like a gorilla that had found a leaf that tasted bad. “We’ve gotta find them before Christmas morning.”

Ham nodded. He was not one for the holiday spirit, but even he could understand the intentions of his simian chemist friend in the statement. He tapped his innocent looking black cane - within it hidden a long sharp blade dipped in a powerful anesthetic - hard on the sidewalk as he stepped. “We’ll try our best, Monk. You know Doc once he gets onto something like this.”

Any response Monk would have made was cut off as he looked up at the next of the many brownstone houses along the street.

“Will you look at that!”

Ham did look, and confusion and puzzlement filled his thoughts. How had the police ignored this? The evidence of something monstrous was writ plain upon the front of the building, whose address matched that of the family of one of the kidnapped boys. Along the roof cap of the protruding bay window, and above that along the ledges of stone, pairs of deep, long scrapes marred the ruddy stonework. They looked, for all the world, like the claws of some great climbing animal had dug into the stone, and left their mark as it perched and moved on.

 

HAM and Monk hurried to the front door, ringing the bell and waiting. A young woman with dark hair and light eyes opened the door, her face flush and puffy from tears. Had she not been so obviously grief stricken, Monk thought, she would have been quite pretty. Those eyes made him want to hit whomever had been making her cry.

“Mrs. Grossman?” Ham asked, his voice in soothing, professional tones. She nodded, her eyes taking in the dapper dress of Ham and the looming bulk of Monk. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the disappearance of your son.”

Her eyes flashed anger, and in a slightly accented voice she cried: “You journalists! All the same. You smell blood in the water, and you come, over an over, to harass us! Go away! I want to see no more of -”

She was cut off by Monk’s high voice, “Ma'am, we’re friends of Doc Savage. He sent us here.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh! I am sorry! Please, come in, it is too cold to have you standing on the step.” She opened the door, guiding them into a modestly furnished front room.

“I am sorry,” she apologized again, “There have been so many newspaper men since the Schultz boy was taken. Why could they not ask questions weeks ago, when my Eugene was taken?” She looked at Monk, about to burst into tears it seemed.

They sat her down in a chair, and said soothing things to her until she calmed. Still, she was a woman on edge, her nerves frayed nearly to breaking. At last, when she calmed enough to talk without a tremor to her voice, they asked her about her son, and his kidnapping.

The story she told of the kidnapping was nearly identical to that of the Schultz’s.

The monster’s description, though vague, was in line with the other account. They asked about the claw marks on the front of the house. Yes, she said, they had appeared that night, and the beast had possessed horrible claws that seemed to glitter in the light from the streetlamp outside. Monk went to the window and took samples of the stonework outside where the claw marks were clearly visible on the ledge. It looked as if a great cat had perched there, dug in its claws, and sprung away, with strength enough to leave half inch deep gashes in brownstone.

While Monk examined the stonework, Ham questioned the woman about her family history. He explained that they were trying to establish some connection between the victims, and that doing so might lead them to the kidnapper. The story of her life was quite similar to the Schultz’s though, and at a mention of a town name in Baden, Ham’s thoughts began to churn. Something was here, he realized, but, like Doc, there were still too many pieces of the puzzle missing for him to see the picture.

They needed very much to visit the other families.


	5. The Missing Pieces

THE Bronze giant towered over the little dark haired woman, yet her hazel eyes showed only a deep, bone worn sadness when they looked up at him. Her son had been the first taken, a boy of seven named Leopold, and his disappearance had been dismissed as a simple case of a runaway by police. Looking at the woman, Doc could tell the woman knew differently in her heart.

Her name was Elisabeth Meier, and she could have been the sister of William Schultz’s wife, Debora, whom Doc had met earlier in the day. Her eyes were a slightly darker shade, her hair darker but streaked with slightly more gray. She might have been just as pretty as Debora, had life been kinder to her. When Doc Savage had knocked at the door of the building, he had been surprised at its ramshackle appearance. There had been much made of the efforts of cleaning up such tenements in recent years, but such efforts apparently had not reached here. the Meier’s lived in a set of two rooms up two flights of stairs that creaked ominously and which might have, at some point in time, been painted. She showed him in, speaking in halting English with a thick accent, offering him tea. Even after seeing the state of the teacup she offered, Doc Savage accepted.

“Please, if you could, can you tell me about the night your son was taken?” He asked, speaking in a dialect of German which most speakers of the language would have found difficult at best to understand. Her eyes went wide with shock at hearing her native dialect spoken so well by an American, and he could see the gratitude that followed that shock. At last, those eyes seemed to say, someone to understand me.

“Krampusse took him,” She exclaimed, “I did not think he was real, but he came! He took my Leo!”

Doc’s face did not betray the moment of confusion, so trained was he to hide his emotions. The he remembered.

“Krampus?” He mimed long horns above his head. She nodded.

“Back home, we used to have a young man dress up as him every winter in the village. He would scare the children, so they were not naughty. But it was a thing we did for the children. It was not real! Here, he is real! I wish I had never followed my Boris here!” She choked back a sob.

Doc looked at her, seeing the picture of misery that she painted. But he needed more information, and so, he asked, pitching his voice into soft tones to sooth her, “Can you tell me about the village where you are from? About your family there?”

When she was done, Doc knew the pattern he had seen was real. He asked the grief stricken woman if she could come to his office later that evening.

“Anything, anything, to get my Leo back.”

 

“AMAZING!” The piping voice of Monk exclaimed, looking at the three women in the front room of Doc Savage’s 86th floor offices. “They could be sisters!” All three women, light eyed and dark haired, with pale skin and gracefully thin frames looked at one another with disbelieving eyes.

“Close,” said the man of bronze, “They are first cousins.”

“You mean,” said Ham, examining each of the women in turn, “That they all share the same grandparents?” Doc nodded.

Elsie Schultz spoke up, “Wait, you mean that our mothers’ were all sisters? Your grandmother,” she turned to Deborah Grossman, “Was Arella Kindlmüller?” Mrs. Grossman nodded, as did Mrs. Meier. William Schultz, standing in the corner, was still staring with disbelieving eyes at the two other women standing beside his wife.

“Mr. Savage,” said Mrs. Schultz, “I barely knew my mother. She died very young, and I was her only child. But she was a Kindlmüller, sure enough, before she married my father.” The other two women exchanged glances.

“My mother, she died very young,” said Mrs. Meier in her thick accent.

“So did mine!” Said the last of the three women. “She was barely thirty when she died. I was still a girl, but I remember it very well.”

“That’s what I thought,” Doc Savage looked at the three women, then at the well dressed Ham, who was leaning heavily on his cane.

Any further comment, however, was prevented by the arrival of the private elevator car, and with it, three women.

“I knew you could convince them to come, Patricia,” was all the man of bronze said by way of greeting to his beautiful, bronze skinned cousin.


	6. Reunions and Revelations

THE five women stood in a corner of Clarke Savage, Jr.’s office, located on the 86th floor of one of New York’s tallest buildings, talking animatedly to one another. They were all granddaughters of a single woman, Arella Kindlmüller, who had lived in a small village in the southern and eastern most reaches of Baden, an area quite harsh. In all cases, except for the Meiers’, their mothers had come to America with husbands from outside the village, yet died young in New York and its boroughs. And these granddaughters of Arella Kindlmüller had each had sons here in New York, and each of those sons, each boy between seven and eight, had been stolen by a monster they all recognized, and remembered, from their mothers’ stories: Krampusse, or as Doc Savage knew him, Krampus.

“They really could be sisters, couldn’t they?”

The sixth woman in the room, who had just spoken, looked nothing like the five talking among themselves. She was immaculately dressed, every inch of her a styled beauty, and she ran one of the most exclusive beauty salons in Manhattan. Today, she wore a fine wool crepe dress that seemed to hug every inch of her body, the light beige fabric offset with a shockingly orange scarf. Most striking, though, were her skin and hair, each a slightly lighter shade of bronze than Clarke Savage Jr.’s own. He was her cousin, though neither was quite sure how close of one. She looked at the bronze giant, smiling her enchanting smile that she knew could always embarrass him. Female attention was one of the few things which could make Doc Savage, fearless man of bronze, squirm.

“So why pick them?” Monk piped, looking from Doc to the women and back. “Some revenge against their grandmother? But she’s long dead!”

Doc shook his head. “No.” He did not elaborate. He turned to Pat, speaking softly enough the other women would not hear. “Can you ask each of them if they would be willing to submit a blood sample?”

Pat nodded, and walked over to the women, inserting herself into their cluster as only another woman could.

As she walked away, William Schultz deferred and positioned himself next to Doc, Ham, and Monk.

“Excuse me, Mr. Savage?” Doc looked down at the little lawyer, his brown wool suit looking somehow even more rumpled than it had a few minutes ago.

“I know you are a very busy man, but I wanted to try to express my gratitude to you for helping my family. All of our families.” He looked towards the cluster of women where his wife stood. “My firm is having their Christmas party tonight - it is Christmas Eve tomorrow, after all, and I wanted to extend an invitation to you and your friends.”

Doc Savage hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “Ham, Monk, you can go. Take Pat. You deserve some fun. But I’ll be busy here.” Monk and Ham looked at one another, their gazes passing behind Doc’s line of sight. But before they could speak, Pat returned.

“They all agreed to it, Doc.”

“Good, come help me with the samples.”

 

MEDICINE was, and always would remain, Doc Savage’s principle talent. The surgical and medical skill of Doc Savage was probably his greatest ability, and he possessed a fund of surgical lore which was likely unequaled in the world. From the laboratory adjoining the office, Doc produced black leather medical bag, within it all the equipment he would need to procure blood samples from the five women.

Patricia felt she was more along for moral support in the face of so many females than any real assistance she could provide in the process. Thus, once Doc Savage had explained his intentions to the women, Pat stepped away, keeping a careful eye on her bronze giant of a cousin, and over to where Ham, Monk, and William Schultz stood near the great inlaid table.

“Miss Savage?” William Schultz’s tweedy little face beamed at her. “I was just explaining to Ham and Mr. Mayfair here about my law firm’s Christmas party this evening. I was hoping all four of you would be willing to attend, but Mr. Savage seems adamant that he cannot.”

“It would be an excellent chance to meet any number of the Schultz’s clients, to see if there is anyone who might harbor a grudge against him,” said Ham, leaning on his innocent looking cane, within which, Pat knew, a razor sharp blade was contained, dipped in one of Doc’s anesthetic substances. “He wants us to go instead.”

“While he stays here, running whatever experiments he needs to run on those girls’ blood.” Pat nodded at Monk’s observation. The unspoken hint that both he and Ham had dropped had not been lost on Pat. They wanted him to go out to the party.

She turned her lustrous golden eyes on William Schultz and smiled her most winning, elegant smile.

“We’ll be there. All four of us.”


	7. Claws of Cobalt

HAM and Pat stood back, watching the work of the hulking brute of a chemist and the bronze giant, each moving about the laboratory as a fish did along a coral reef. This was home to them, known in intricate detail, and every apparatus and device, many of Doc’s on devising, were theirs completely.

It was Monk that came up for air first, his exclamation of surprise startling Pat.

“What is it?” Doc asked, looking up from a set of test tubes that he had been dropping samples of the women’s blood into.

“Whatever made these claw marks was made of metal, Doc. And no ordinary metal. Come see.” A beefy hand beckoned Doc over to where Monk had set several samples under a powerful microscope of Doc Savages design. Doc glanced through the eyepieces, and then nodded at Monk. Glimmers of metal shavings glittered in the bright white light directed on the specimen tray.

“But that’s not all. Know what kind of metal it is?” Doc looked at Monk, waiting. Monk flipped a switch on the side of the microscope, altering the wavelength of light produced. Doc looked back through the eyepiece.

“A cobalt-steel alloy.” Doc remained bent over the eyepiece, and flipped the switch again, still remaining intent on the little shavings of metal. “Of the sort being developed for gas turbine engines.” He looked back up at Monk, who was grinning broadly.

“Whatever that creature is, Doc, it’s using a very unusual alloy for claws.”

“That’s nice. So at least we know it isn’t actually a monster.” Ham snorted, “Which we already knew, since there aren’t any such things as - what did you call it, Doc - Krampus?”

Doc nodded. “Yes. Even the women knew the creature wasn’t real, once I talked to them about it.”

“But we still don’t know why their sons were taken!” Pat exclaimed.

“No. We don’t. But we do know the pattern the kidnapper has been taking. The gaps between kidnappings have been getting longer. But I will estimate that another one will be taken soon. Likely tomorrow night.”

“On Christmas Eve!” Ham, Pat, and Monk all nearly said at once. Doc nodded.

“Is there any way to tell who it might be?” Ham asked.

“I think so. But I don’t know how to find them, and whomever is taking these children does.” Doc shook his head.

 

DOC Savage explained what he had discovered from talking to the women as he had taken blood samples from them earlier that evening. Arella Kindlmüller was the grandmother of all five women whose sons had been taken, but they were not her only descendants. She had also had two other daughters by the same husband as the mothers of the five women, and two sons by her first husband. The sons had been grown and gone before any of the girls had been born. As far as he could discover from Mrs. Meier, who knew the most of the family history, the eldest of her aunts had died before she had been twenty, without children. The other one, the youngest, had still been in her girlhood when the family had been scattered by the death of their father.

“If she lived long enough to have a daughter, and that daughter had a son that was born in America, it would be that boy. If not, I don’t know.”

“But how do you know? What if she had a son? Or the daughter had a daughter?” Pat asked, becoming annoyed at her own confusion.

Doc shook his head. “All of those women had a very rare blood type. It was the first thing I checked. But that alone wouldn’t have been enough. After all, even though less than one percent of the population has the type, that is still a very large pool of people. Not enough to make them unique.” He looked around to each of the three, his golden eyes seeming to sparkle with excitement. “But when I looked more closely, I found they all had several very rare antibodies, most of which their sons would have all inherited, but which would have been fatal to a daughter. The reverse would have been true for their mothers.”

“These women would only have been able to give birth to sons, and their mothers only to daughters. And whomever is kidnapping their sons needs them for something to do with their blood.”

“What could it be?” Asked Ham.

“I don’t know yet.” Doc said, shaking his head. “I will not know until tomorrow morning, when these tests finish.”

Pat saw her opportunity. “Well, if that’s the case, what’s stopping us from going to Mr. Schultz’s Christmas party?”

“Nothing,” said the bronze giant, “Is stopping you from going. Ham and Monk, you can go, too. I’ll stay here.”

“Now, you just said yourself those tests will not be done until tomorrow,” She slunk towards Doc Savage, golden eyes glimmering. “And Mr. Schultz wanted to thank you for all your hard work.”

“And besides!” Piped Monk, his childlike voice excited, “It would give us a chance to scope out the people that know the Schultz’s well enough to know his wife’s history. Maybe see if there’s someone who has access to this type of metal too.”

“I have to go.” Said Ham, looking at his wristwatch. “As a business associate of Mr. Schultz, having been invited weeks ago, I am obligated to go, especially after the aid he has given the Hidalgo Trading Company over the years with legal research. However, I am in agreement with the grinning gorilla that you should attend as well.”

“Hey!” Monk protested, as Doc Savage looked between his two stalwart friends, realizing that he had little hope of dissuading Pat without their aid.

“Alright,” he consented, “But let’s put everything right in the lab first.”


	8. Suspects and Tinsel

IT was at these moments, Pat Savage reflected, that she saw her near invulnerable cousin at his weakest. He easily stood a head, if not head and shoulders above nearly everyone else in the room. While alone he might have been mistaken for a man of normal size, so perfect were his proportions, here, in the sea of formally dressed men, and their elegantly dressed wives and daughters, he towered. And, though he knew every social grace, so often he seemed to be one who knew the motions and steps perfectly, but had never heard the music of the dance of normal social interactions. Thus, while Ham, and even Monk, had little trouble navigating the evening on their own, Clarke Savage Jr. was, for the entire night, at the elbow of the little lawyer, William Schultz.

Patricia Savage, Doc Savage’s cousin of some relation, followed close behind, making sure to ease the bronze giant out of any social embarrassments he might find his way into, while at the same time, teasing the man constantly by threatening him with the dance floor. Female attention was one of his few great embarrassments, and she knew exactly which buttons to push to fluster him. Yet throughout the evening she watched, observant, as time and again William Schultz introduced the man of bronze to some client or colleague, and saw the look of admiration which would greet the name of Clarke Savage, Jr. and the handshake that would follow was nearly always heart felt.

She noticed, however, three instances in the evening where such was not the case.

In the first instance, it was a middle-aged couple by the name of Laier, the husband a lawyer at another law firm, to whom Schultz had lost a case earlier in the year. The wife, a platinum blond too young for her husband, had seemed distinctly icy towards Doc as she had been introduced. Her husband had been down right rude to him. The case had been a routine case of deed ownership, and Laier had thought to win it easily. But Schultz had been able to research the claim, and found fundamental problems in the claim to the property that Laier’s client was making, and had secured the deed in clear for his own client. It had been, so Pat had heard, an embarrassment. William Schultz had tried his best to make small talk with the couple, before the pair walked away from him, with barely a farewell.

In the second, it was a man in his mid thirties, his eyes deeply sunken into a nearly skeletal face framed in slickly oiled black hair, who had seemed nearly indifferent to be introduced to the wondrous Clarke Savage, Jr. His name was Leopold Eisenbraun, and he was introduced as being a client of the firm, the head of a research firm working with the government, and even as Doc had tried to learn more about the man, Pat had seen Eisenbraun’s face close down to such social contract. As they had walked away, William Schultz had explained in hushed tones that Eisenbraun’s daughter was very ill, and that the man did not like being away from her for very long. Pat could understand the strain she had seen in the man’s pale face, especially once she learned that he was a widower; it could not be easy caring for a sick daughter and running a large firm.

In the third, it was a daughter of one of the members of the firm, a grown woman, her face and hair both seemingly sculpted from fine ivory, who shot a glare of baleful, obvious hatred towards William Schultz as he approached her father to make introductions. Lauren Shaun was her name, and once Pat Savage had heard it, she knew instantly why the woman could do nothing but glare at William Schultz through the entire conversation. She had once had hopes to marry the little lawyer, and had targeted the man when he had been a clerk at a competing firm, but had been rebuffed by him repeatedly. How bitter she seemed, even after nearly a decade, Pat thought. Could she have planned this whole thing to hurt William Schultz and his wife, she wondered?

Yet in each case, Doc Savage was as personable as he ever was, and Pat did her best to fill in the gaps.

 

TINSEL sparkled, and a band played festive tunes in the corner of the large rented ballroom. The firm which William Schultz worked for was not without clout, especially in the clients it attracted. Brigadier General Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks, the legal face of the Hidalgo Trading Company, owned by Doc Savage and operated as a cover for the source of the wealth which allowed the man of bronze the funds to pursue evil and injustice wherever in the world he found it, knew most of the people in attendance, though a few were new faces to him. He mingled with the crowd, keeping an eye on the enthusiastic Monk who mingled with the crowd as well, and in general did as he would have had the situation not been one such as it was. In his mind, however, each time he encountered someone, he wondered if this was the fiend who had kidnapped five children over the last three months, and would, soon, kidnap again.

He noticed the group of children in the corner of the room quite by accident. He had wandered over, a small drink in hand, to examine the towering Christmas tree that had been set up in the corner furthest away from the door. At its base, he found perhaps a dozen children of various ages, but all easily under twelve, gathered around a central figure, seated in a large chair. Ham did a double take to see Monk, dressed from head to toe in red, his burly face nearly hidden by a fake white beard, and white fur trimmed red hat.

He was reading to the children, telling them a story from the book in his lap, and making them laugh with his high pitched voice, contrasting with his artificially low jolly laughter. Monk spotted Ham as he stood agape, watching the oaf of a chemist, and winked a sly wink at the well dressed lawyer.

What a child, Ham thought to himself, unsure if he meant it as a complement or an insult.


	9. To Catch a Monster

THE four, Doc, Pat, Monk, and Ham, had left the Christmas party late in the evening, bidding William Schultz and his wife Elsie farewell as they had all shuffled into a taxi. They were all quiet as the car drove through the drifting, windblown snow that was falling, involved in their own thoughts, but all preoccupied with the problem of the missing children.

Pat found herself seated next to the window on the driver’s side, and she gazed out into the white and grey haze of the evening. The streets were mostly empty, as it had gone nearly past midnight, yet there were still a few people about. Some huddled into heavy coats against the blowing snow, trudging to wherever they were going, as others drove by in cars or trucks, off to some errand or headed home. The night before Christmas eve, she thought, and it seems so dark and lonely out.

She couldn’t help but wonder where the five boys were. They must be terrified, away from their families, taken by a monster in the night, she realized. What must they be going through? She found herself hoping that they were safe and warm, that whomever had taken them was not mistreating them. A cold chill crossed her, running down her spine. What if they were dead?

She felt a lump in her throat at the thought, followed by a bright flash of anger and frustration. She would do everything she could to help find the missing boys, for she felt a feminine stab of protectiveness for any child. For these five boys she had never met, she felt a tangle of feelings. But she knew the other three felt just as strongly.

The thought of a child, any child, in harm’s way made her stomach clench. As streetlights played in bands across the faces of Ham and Monk, who sat in the back of the cab with her, she could see the determination and worry on each of their faces. A gust of cold air from a bad seal on the window made her aware of a tear trying to edge its way out of her eye. She wiped it away hurriedly.

The burst of emotion was interrupted, however, by a strange, trilling sound that seemed to come form everywhere at once. It had a quality like that of the noises made by oriental monks deep in meditation, coming from somewhere deep in the throat, yet melodious and resonant like no normal sung note. Pat recognized it instantly as the sound her cousin sometimes made in times of deep thought or concentration, a sound she was never sure if he realized he even made. Yet it was a sound that brought a sense of comfort and relief to her, and to anyone else who knew Doc Savage well. It meant that the bronze giant had made some realization, or had some plan, and that he knew how to resolve whatever predicament they faced.

Most of all, it meant that Doc Savage was there, a force of good in a world of injustice. Pat could only smile to herself in the darkness of the taxi. Everything would be all right.

 

THE next morning they met in the offices that Doc Savage kept on the 86th floor of one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan. Beyond the window of the front room, where the great inlaid wooden table stood covered with files, sheets of paper filled with medical and genealogical information, only a fog of cloud bank could be seen, the occasional swirl of snow blowing through the gray. As each had arrived via the private elevator, Doc had only looked up at them from whatever page of the pile he was reading at the time, nodded, then returned to it. They knew better than to interrupt him more than that. Each of them hung their coats and hats, then found a place to sit or stand that was comfortable, and busied themselves with something.

The sharply dressed lawyer “Ham” Brooks was the first to arrive, and settled into an armchair in the corner after returning Doc’s nod of greeting. He began reviewing a list of William Schultz’s clients over the last year, though he had read it what felt like a hundred times now. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to find any connection between any of these names and the other four families whose children had been kidnapped. He was beginning to think that Doc was right, that the connection was not one of revenge or a feud.

The hulking, scar covered industrial chemist “Monk” Mayfaire arrived minutes after Ham, grumbling about the cold in his high pitched, childlike voice as he hung his coat. On seeing the concentration of the man of bronze, he stopped instantly. He looked around for a moment, nodded to Ham, then disappeared into the little laboratory in the adjoining room, one of the best equipped on the eastern seaboard if not in the world, intent on checking his analysis of the metal shards. Something about them was still bothering him, and he wanted to run a few more tests.

Patricia Savage arrived shortly thereafter, her outfit of ivory and tan immaculate under the camel hair overcoat she shed and hung up. She saw her cousin’s focus, noted Ham’s furrowed brow, and the battered coat on the rack that could belong to no one but Monk, and promptly strode over to the big wooden table, its polished and inlaid surface hidden beneath the files and papers, and took a prim perch on its edge.

Time passed, but eventually Doc Savages’s voice interrupted the silence. “He’s going to strike again tonight.”

Monk’s scarred face appeared in the doorway, his voice piping, “Then we have to stop him!”

Doc Savage nodded, rising from his seat at the great polished table. He walked over to the single window, looking out at the clouds and swirling snow.

“Ham,” the dapper lawyer looked up, setting the file he had been reading down on a sharply pressed pants leg, “I need you to make arrangements with the police, that they know we are going to be hunting this fiend tonight. I don’t want any of their men getting in our way and possibly getting hurt.” Ham nodded, and walked over to the phone, beginning to call the police commissioner.

Doc turned away from the whirling snow outside the glass.

“Monk, I need you to go down to the Hidalgo Trading Company building and prep the gyroplane. I know it doesn’t handle well in a crosswind, but it will have to do for this. The only way we are going to spot him is from the air, even in this weather. I need it mounted with the infrared searchlights and the radio transponders. I want to be in the air before it gets dark.” With barely a nod, Monk was gone into the system of pneumatic tubes they had nicknamed the flea run, and on his way to the warehouse complex on the Hudson river that served as their hangers and motor pool.

“And what about me?” Pat sat where she had perched on the table, eyeing her bronze giant of a cousin.

“You should go home.”

She glared at him, her own golden eyes flashing with stubborn resistance to his attempts to protect her from danger. She hopped down from the table’s edge with a graceful swing, and met his own insistent look. His eyes seemed like pools of gold and copper dust, swirling in a suspension of oil, and they could unnerve nearly any man who stared into them for too long with their nearly hypnotic quality. Pat looked into them and felt only frustration.

“I,” she said with stout resolution, “Will do nothing of the sort. I’m going to go visit the families of those boys. Most of them are sick with grief, and it is Christmas Eve, after all. They could all use some company, I think.” And without a second glance, she snatched up her coat and hat, and was into the entryway and the elevator before Doc Savage could say another word.

Ham looked up, and grinned. “That one never will stay out of trouble, you know.”


	10. Searching and Finding

DUSK settled as heavily over Manhattan and the boroughs as the blanket of snow that was continuing to fall even as darkness did. The cloud ceiling had lifted, yet the crosswinds that swirled the snow as it fell were still sharp and gusty. As evening settled, the lights of the city winked on one by one, illuminating the streets and buildings like a jeweled landscape, reflecting off the falling snow to produce a plethora of glittering, diamond like lights.

And through the swirls of snow, above the glittering city, a gyroplane flew, its rotors and propellers working together to give the small craft stability in the winds. At its controls, Monk grumbled to himself as he fought the winds, his beefy hands wrapped around the flight sticks with white-knuckled ferocity. Beside him in the copilot’s seat Doc Savage scanned the rooftops with his specialized field glasses, designed to see the light of his infrared searchlight and anything that might be caught in its beam.

“How are we going to find it?” Monk asked. He did not have to shout, as he would have in a conventional aircraft, for, unlike those, this gyroplane of Doc Savage’s design was sealed such that it was perfectly silent inside, even when the weather was poor.

“I have some idea,” the bronze giant of a man said, adjusting his harness slightly, “We should focus on the East Side. Make passes from east to west and back. We’ll search all night if we have to. We have more than enough fuel, even with fighting the winds.” Monk nodded.

“This seems like such a long shot, Doc. How do we even know he will be out tonight?”

“He will be,” Doc said, and Monk did not argue.

 

HOURS passed, and full dark fell on the city, and the falling snow did not abate. And still Monk and Doc Savage searched the rooftops of Manhattan, the gyroplane flying just low enough to give a good view of the roofs below, but not low enough for what little noise that the rotors and engines of Doc Savage’s own design made to disturb the slumber of the populace.

Monk was becoming frustrated, Doc could tell, but his own patience was endless. He knew the man he hunted would be out tonight to take another boy. If only he knew exactly who the next child was to be taken, this would be simple. But he didn’t, and there was no point waisting energy on things that were outside his reach at this moment.

He focused on playing the infrared search light over the rooftops, watching its invisible beam in his specialized field glasses. He searched for any sign of motion, and indication of something out of place. Yet everything seemed peaceful, and the blowing snow settled over the city like a glittering white haze.

Suddenly, their radio set crackled to life, nearly making Monk start. “Doc!” Pat’s voice crackled at them, “I know who the next boy is! I know where he is!”

Doc quickly grabbed the hand mic, keying it up and speaking, “Where, Pat! Where is he?”

“Near Lexington, south of 25th,” she sounded breathless as she gave further directions, “His name is William Gretz. He’s the son of the one granddaughter we couldn’t find. You were right! Mrs. Berg remembered her name, and who she married, and I tracked him down from there.”

“Thank you,” Doc said, and set down the hand mic.

With near manic intensity, Monk turned the small craft in an arc, and began to fly southwards, making a near straight line for where Pat had told them the boy lived. As they flew, Doc continued to play the invisible light over the buildings and streets, holding his field glasses tight to his eyes, searching the circle cast by the light for any sign of movement.

“Shouldn’t we warn them?” Monk asked, glancing at the intently searching man of bronze.

“No,” Doc said, not taking the field glasses down from his face, “If he knows we are coming he will be even harder to find.”

“I just hope we aren’t too late,” Monk said.

“We aren’t.” Doc took the field glasses down from his face and pointed a few blocks away. “There he is.”


	11. From Above

THROUGH the darkness and swirling snow beyond the cockpit window, Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair looked to where Doc Savage’s corded, sinewy finger pointed, and saw movement. A figure, bigger than a man’s, became more clear as the craft neared unnoticed, its all but silent engines and rotors only disturbing windblown snow further. But more detail than that, Monk could not see.

Through his special field glasses, however, Doc Savage could see the figure fully illuminated in the infrared light of the searchlight mounted to the nose of the gyroplane. The body was long, the limbs longer, and the entire creature covered in shaggy fur of some dark color. And, above the thing’s dark head, a pair of long, curving antelope like horns arced in dangerous scythe shaped bends towards its back.

“Do you want me to land?” Monk’s voice was deeper than normal, a sign that his anger was up. “We’ll catch him and then -”

“No, Monk. We’ll stick with the plan.”

“But, Doc!” Monk’s further objections were silenced as Doc rose from the copilot’s seat and picked up a large bundle from the floor behind it, along with a helmet fitted with a miniature radio and goggles. He slung the bundle over his shoulders by two straps, much like a backpack, and stepped to the back of the little craft’s interior as he fastened the helmet into place.

“Hold her at a steady velocity, Monk, but don’t loose him. He’s going straight for the building where the boy is.”

“Right, Doc.”

Monk heard the sound of the hatchway to the craft being opened, and felt the sudden rush of cold air and wind, the roar of it following just behind the wave of chill air. He wanted to turn, to see Doc step out, but he kept his eyes on the rooftops, several hundred feet below. He heard the change in the sound of the air as Doc stepped through the hatchway, and held his breath.

 

ICY wind smashed into Doc Savage’s bronze face, the force of it drastically increased by the momentum he carried from the little gyroplane’s speed and his own leaping jump. Quickly, he sighted the figure moving across the rooftops, his eyes keen beyond those of a normal man’s thanks to years of constant training. Even in the blowing snow and howling wind of his plummet, he could see the figure through his goggles as it loped across the rooftops.

Aware of the limits of his time in air, he angled his body to give him a slight lift, slowing his fall slightly. He then pulled a cord near his shoulder, and with a noise that sounded like a roar, the parachute deployed, opening a dark shape of dull colored fabric against the dark sky.

It was specially designed by Doc Savage himself for such low altitude jumps, and looked virtually nothing like the round, mushroom like parachutes most commonly used. It was longer than it was wide, with two layers of fabric corrugated with a third segment of material that produced a series of tubes to catch air. The fabric of the parachute and the harness were a material he had developed with Monk’s help, which was stronger than the newly perfected synthetics that were being used to replace silk already. And, most of all, it had a pair of handles that gave him a slight ability to direct the course of his descent.

This last was the most important development, especially for tonight. He aimed for a rooftop ahead of the running figure, aware of its amazing speed. Yet the crosswinds and blowing snow added to what was already a difficult task. His muscles strained against the cords, cables of their own under the skin, bunching and knotting under the fabric of the cold weather flight suit he wore, and his efforts turned the parachute as he fell, fighting the winds that tried to blow him off course.

At last, his feet touched the tar and gravel of a roof, and with a running stop, he came to a rest. Yet the man of bronze paused only long enough to release the buckles of the harness, shedding the parachute, before springing forward into a run. He scanned the surrounding roofs, spotting his quarry a few houses ahead of him, and took off in its direction.

It was his hope that the man inside the Krampus suit, for it could be nothing other than that, did not realize he was being chased. He wanted to catch the man before he took the boy, but that would mean catching him before he arrived. Doc knew he could likely keep pace with the man, for even with whatever mechanical advantages the suit might give beyond the claws he knew it had, very little could match his own ability to climb through the urban landscape.

With a grim determination, Doc Savage vaulted over to the next rooftop, following the bestial figure as it ran.


	12. A Chase Through Snow

SLICK ice and gusting, freezing winds seemed to do little to slow the great, dark furred form as it lopped along the rooftops. As Doc Savage chased it, these things slowed him only slightly. And, as they ran, Doc began to observe the strange creature, the thing that must be a suited man.

Its limbs were long, but oddly joined, Doc Savage noticed, and even in the light reflected up from the streets, he could catch the occasional glint of the cobalt-steel claws it had on both hands and feet. Had it stood, it would have easily been over seven feet tall, yet the hind limbs were by far longer than the front, an odd configuration for four footed running. Thus, it ran with a springing gate, powerful back legs pushing the rest of the body forward to be caught on the front limbs, which bent heavily with the impact. Its back would arch, swinging the back legs forward to the outside of the front legs, and the cycle would repeat. It was the run of no natural animal, that was certain.

Too, as he chased, his fingers and feet finding purchase where most would have thought impossible, he saw the marks left by the claws. He did not want to confront those if he had to, but he had not thought a mercy-bullet loaded gun would have been able to pierce the suit. And now, that he saw it more closely, he knew he had been right.

Suddenly, it darted left, making a leap across a main street, and Doc Savage was faced with either following or loosing his quarry. Doc, without slowing, turned, pivoting on an outstretched hand, and made for the street. He set himself, legs pushing, and leapt out into empty space.

But he did not aim for the roof where the figure had landed. He aimed for, and landed in, the branches of a tree growing from the sidewalk, his impact masked by the sound of heavy snow falling from the branches. He clambered, grabbing icy limbs and bark in strong, sinewy hands to secure himself, then followed a think branch out until it reached the roof.

He ran along the branch as a man would a sidewalk, without a thought to the nearly three story fall below him, and with all the grace of a jungle predator. With a jump, he was on the roof, and scanning for his quarry.

And, he realized, his quarry was almost to its own target.

 

IN the offices on the 86th floor, Ham was, again, going through documents, trying to find a name to put to the kidnapper in the Krampus suit. He felt frustrated, wishing he was with Monk and Doc, chasing the kidnapper, but the gyroplane only held two, and Monk was the better pilot of the two, as much as it galled him to admit it. And so, he struggled through the files again, trying to find some connection he had missed.

He had been interrupted when Pat had arrived, breathless, with the name and address of the sixth child, and he had stood behind her as she used the radio set in the office to call the gyroplane. Now, at least, Monk and Doc had a target.

As he sat back down, however, a piece of paper on the inlaid surface of the table caught his eyes. It was covered in Monk’s handwriting, mostly chemical formulae and technical jargon, only some of which Ham could decipher. But at the top, a word was written in a heavy hand, and circled multiple times. And, for some reason, that word looked very familiar to Ham.

He scrambled through the files, until at last he found the one he was looking for. It was a name of a metal alloy recently patented by one of William Schultz’s clients. An alloy, Ham realized, of steel and cobalt, used for making parts of a natural gas turbine engine. And, he saw, it had also been used to make climbing axe blades.

“Pat!” He stood up so fast he knocked his chair over, snatching up his cane and leaping for the door. “I know who took the boys. Grab your coat!”

She was out of the door before he was.


	13. The Trap Fails To Spring

THE man of bronze froze as the eyes of the twisted, horrible face of the figure he had been chasing across the snowy rooftops saw him.

He had been a rooftop behind, catching up to his quarry, when it had stopped suddenly and turned, preparing, Doc Savage realized, to climb down the outer wall of one of the buildings. As it had turned, however, he had been unable to duck down quickly enough to avoid being spotted.

The mask, for it had to be a mask, just as the seven foot tall, fur covered body had to be a suit, was a twisted parody of a face. It had deathly pale skin, seemingly white in the reflected streetlights, with a long, pointed nose and drawn back parody of a grin. That grin showed long fangs, with a long forked tongue that dangled from between the teeth. Had the immobility of the face not shown it, to the careful observer, to be a mask, the effect would have been chilling to the core.

But the eyes, set back under the heavy, furred brows were real eyes, and they saw the man of bronze clearly. For a moment they stood facing one another across the snowy roof, waiting to see what the other would do.

With the quickness of a startled deer, the great fur covered form sprang, its powerful back legs launching it into the air. Doc braced himself, sure the creature was attacking, then saw the creature twist in mid air, turning the ballistic momentum into an arcing turn away from him. Catching itself on front limbs that bent at an awkward angle, claws digging visibly into the roofing, the man in the Krampus suit turned and bolted away from Doc Savage.

An ordinary mam would have waisted a moment to curse his luck, or to wonder if giving chase was the best option: Doc Savage gave no such hesitation. In the blink of an eye he was back to the chase, his long legs and arms making him as agile on the icy rooftops as a cat in the jungle. He followed the man, now even more sure of his ability to catch the false Krampus that he was running scared. The advantage of momentum that his quarry had previously had was gone, and now, Doc Savage gained on him with each rooftop they passed along.

Suddenly, the radio in his helmet crackled to life in his ear, Ham’s voice coming through loud and clear thanks to the relay transponder in the gyroplane that must still be circling above.

“Doc! We know who it is! It’s Leopold Eisenbraun.” Doc did not respond. He had known since this morning who his likely quarry was, but had been unable to prove it. The metal shavings the claws had left behind had been of an alloy of cobalt and steel that Eisenbraun’s company had developed for a new natural gas turbine engine. Monk had recognized the name, but not made the connection. Doc was also not one to embarrass his friends when they discovered something he had known well before them, and so stayed quiet.

Suddenly Pat’s voice joined Ham’s. “We’re headed for his house in Murray Hill. The boys are likely to be there.”

At last, Doc responded, keying up the mic with a clever switch on his coverall sleeve, “I’m after him now, Pat. He’s running that direction, likely headed to ground there.” After a pause he said, “Be careful. Let Ham go in first, Pat.” He could picture the stubborn indignation on her face at his words.

 

DOC Savage, man of bronze, chased after Leopold Eisenbraun, head of a materials development and research firm, as he ran through the snowy night. With the connection confirmed, Doc could begin to analyze how the seven foot tall, long-limbed Krampus suit was constructed. The claws that tipped each hand and foot were of steel-cobalt alloy, able to hold an edge even as they cut through stone, tile, or any number of other materials and the man inside the suit ran.

It also explained the ability of it to climb up seemingly sheer stone walls that Doc Savage himself would have had difficulty climbing. Each of those hands seemed to be some clever sort of remote manipulator, controlled by Eisenbraun’s own hands midway down the inside of the forearms of the suit. This, he saw as he got closer, let the suit grip and hold walls and ledges as normal hands would, yet explained why the joint in the arm seemed so stiff.

The hind legs, he reasoned as he observed their spring-loaded power, must be stilts of some sort. But they must have shock absorbing coils in them, to be able to turn downward momentum back into upward momentum. As he watched the suit leap across an alleyway below, he thought of how heavily braced the legs must be around Eisenbraun’s own legs to not twist under the load and give way.

Eisenbraun’s own back and legs were driving the momentum of the suit, then, and the entire outfit must be amazingly heavy and painful to wear. It was a little less than a mile to Murray Hill from where he had turned tail, but it had been further to some of the other kidnappings, Doc thought. Eisenbraun could not have run the entire way each direction in the suit, and not at this pace even if he had. Surely he must be wearing down, thought Doc Savage, he cannot maintain this breakneck pace forever. But he is close to home, and fear can drive men to do things they otherwise could not do.

Fear, or perhaps the same line of thought that Doc Savage had mulled over, drove the next unexpected move Eisenbraun made. He dove, headlong, off the side of one of the buildings, headed for street level.

Doc Savage was right behind him, moments later, clambering down the edges of the building with inhuman speed.


	14. Reversal of Fortunes

“HAM! Look! There’s Doc!” Pat pointed out the window of the car at the bronze figure as he climbed down the side of the building. She gasped again as he let go of his handholds nearly a story above the ground, seemingly falling, then landing in a roll, only to come up to his feet at a dead run. They were driving towards Eisenbraun’s building in one of Doc’s own cars, a heavily modified and armored number.

“Where’s the Krampus? Where’s Eisenbraun?” Asked Pat.

Ham grabbed the radio hand mic, and keyed it up. “Doc! We’re right behind you in one of the cars. Where’s Eisenbraun?”

“Eisenbraun is about a half block ahead of me,” crackled back Doc’s voice. “ I want you to circle around ahead of us, but stay back! Those claws of his could rip into even the armor plating of that car.”

Ham obeyed, turning off the street where Doc chased Eisenbraun, pressing the nearly silent engine for speed as he drove several blocks up. He was grateful, once again, for Doc’s new transmission, not needing the distraction of shifting on the icy, snow slick road as he drove. The salt crews, it seemed, would not be out for another few hours yet.

Ham swung the car around another fast corner, coming back onto a road that crossed the one he had previously been on. He drove towards Eisenbraun’s house, which was mid block, sliding the car up onto the sidewalk to avoid a patch of ice, then stopping with a screech of brakes as he saw the scene playing out on the sidewalk in front of the house.

Doc Savage, man of bronze, sat on the back of seven feet or more of crazed kidnapper in a Krampus suit, holding the man pinned with a great hand across the side of the head and the weight of his body, and holding the great horned mask up in his free hand like a grizzly decapitate prize.

 

“MY daughter! My daughter!” Eisenbraun screamed as Doc Savage held him pinned. “Please, if you don’t let me up, she’s going to die!”

Ham and Pat looked at one another as they stood, watching, then at Doc.

“Go. Find the boys. And her,” Doc said. The two obeyed without question, running up the icy front steps, Ham cutting through the door lock with his sword cane.

Ham ran into the house, calling, but heard no response. Pat charged in after him, not bothering to call out, running up the stairs. Ham heard doors slamming, then heard Pat call down to him that she had found the girl, but she was unconscious in her bed.

Ham searched the lower floor, finding at last what appeared to be the way to the basement, and ran down the stairs. There, each one in a hospital bed, lay the boys. They were asleep, except for the Schultz boy, who seemed to be in a drugged stupor but still awake. Ham darted back upstairs, to find Pat holding the girl, a tiny, pale thing who looked half the age she should be.

“Quick, take her out to Doc. The police should be here soon. The boys are all safe, but drugged asleep, downstairs.”

Pat ran outside into the snow, carrying the little girl.


	15. A Final Gift

AS diverse and amazing as Doc Savage’s exploits were, many forgot that his first calling had been that of a surgeon. To this day he still felt those skills were his sharpest, and it was when faced with a medical problem that he felt most at home. He had invented dozens of new techniques, many revolutionary, and devised a number of new treatments for conditions previously thought untreatable, including criminal lunacy.

Thus, the moment he had seen the girl, pale and tiny, in Pat Savage’s arms, the pieces had all fallen together in his mind. The Eisenbraun’s were descended from one of the sons from the first marriage of Arella Kindlmüller, and from her had inherited the same condition which lead her other daughters to be short lived. But lacking whatever the second husband had contributed to prevent this problem, the daughters of this line fell ill almost from birth.

“It seems to be a very rare, inherited deficiency of the blood,” Doc Savage explained to Ham and Monk as they stood outside the hospital rooms of the children. “Only blood transfusions from the boys were keeping her alive. There is something in their blood she lacks completely.”

“But couldn’t he get blood from anyone?” Monk asked.

“No,” Doc shook his head, and looked over to where Leopold Eisenbraun was handcuffed, guarded by two police officers. “She’s like the boys, and their mothers. She has a very rare blood type, made worse by a combination of antibodies in her blood. If she received a transfusion from someone else, she would likely die.”

“Is there anything you can do, Doc?” Monk looked worried, his expression darkening further as Doc Savage shook his head again, unwilling to state the obvious.

“Mr. Savage?” The quiet voice of Mrs. Meier asked from beside them. “I am sorry. I could not but overhear. You say the man’s little girl, she will die if she does not have blood from our boys?”

“That’s the short of it,” said Monk.

“What about my blood, Mr. Savage?” Doc looked at her, thoughtful.

“It would only need to be a little, but she would need it regularly. I would have to add a few things to it, to add the last of the missing elements. But it would work.” Doc Savage looked to the little woman.

“You would do this, for the daughter of the man who kidnapped your boy?” He asked in her dialect of German.

The little woman nodded. “He was only trying to save his little girl.” She switched to English, “This, I understand.”

“Well, now ain’t that a Christmas miracle,” said Monk as he watched Doc Savage and the woman walk over to Eisenbraun to ask his permission.

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever story for this fandom. I was amazed by how fully formed it came to mind. I guess I had a good muse.
> 
> Special thanks to Amy (and her hubby) and Leto for beta services for a universe most people have never heard of.


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